Wednesday, July 2, 2008

And Talk About Easy As Falling Off Of A Log....

The other night I announced that the Design Nathan A New Avatar contest had been canceled due to lack of interest. Some of you responded that it wasn't lack of interest as much as lack of ability. Whatever!

This has inspired me to come up with a contest that doesn't require you to give a crap at all. It doesn't require you to have any particular skill or talent. In other words, winning is as easy as falling off of a log!

As of 8:40 am EST, this blog has had 9337 visits since its inception. So, in the radio tradition of "be the 10th caller and win crap", I'm looking for my 10.000th visitor. I'm currently averaging 470 visits per week, so the winning visit should happen some time the end of next week. And all you have to do to win is keep dropping in.

The only hitch here will be figuring out who the winner is. I recognize some of you just by seeing where you're dropping in from, but I've got a (Yay) growing number of lurkers who I see fairly often, but they never comment, so I don't know who they are. And I suspect that some of you are reading by other means, so I don't see hits from where I know you live. Anyway, we'll be judging by my Sitemeter, since that's all I've got to go by. If I don't recognize who the winner is, I'll put up enough info about the 10,000th visit for the person to recognize themselves and they'll just have to delurk to claim their prize.

What's the prize, you may ask? Well, since most movie theaters now allow you to buy tickets online, I'll be sending you and one guest to the movie of your choice in your very own hometown! How much fun is that?

Jeff. Just to be perfectly clear...the deadline is whenever it happens. Satisfied?

(Yes, I am that big a nerd. And I don't apologize for it, either. The whole "Neverwednesday Nights" thing is a pre-emptive blog entry in case I don't have time to blog because of a regularly-scheduled Neverwinter Nights session with friends. NWN being a computer implementation of the D&D 3rd Edition rules. A good way for geeky friends to hang out, especially now that one of them spends much of his year teaching in Tennessee.

You know, on Ebay they have the practice of bid sniping - swooping in at the last second to pre-emptively win a bid. Maybe we could create some comment-sniping software to swoop in and win Nathan's contest. We have a few days to code it. Not that I can write much code besides html and php... but shoot, I can learn Java and code something like this. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Eric, I'm that big of a nerd too. Haven't played Twilight Imperium though. My wife asks how D&D can be fun if there's no board (she's a Clue, Sorry, Life) kind of gal. I try to explain it to her, but she doesn't get it and I just can't find the words to make her understand.

TI is awesome, but you need more than four people to play it. (It's not even negotiable; in fact four is really almost too few.) Actually, if we got two expanded sets together and a really big table, you could set up a 16-player game that would be freakin' sweet, tho' it might take a few weeks to finish it. That would be insane. I heard the company that publishes it did something like that at a convention one year.

TI, if you're unfamiliar with it, basically takes the best mechanics from a dozen other games--including classics like Dune, Cosmic Encounter, Axis And Allies, and Puerto Rico--and meshes them together into one totally awesome game if galactic domination. It's an example of how you can make something brilliantly unique without necessarily being original (strictly speaking).

Matt, it's funny how the ones who say "but it has no board" are almost always the ones who become fanatics after they've actually played an RPG and seen how it works. You oughta see if you can come up with a gaming group.

I don't like playing Risk much because it's one of those games that's not much fun to play if you're losing. Other games can be fun, win or lose - but Risk is *painful* once you start that downhill slide to oblivion. My sons love it. Of course.

I'm usually not the winner when it comes to Risk, but I like that when you start that downward slide, and you know you're going to lose anyway, that leaves you free to be totally reckless and really try to inconvenience whoever you like.

And that movie quote is nagging at me like I've heard it before, but I don't want to cheat and google it.

What's the time limit for someone to drop in a new quote if no one gets that one?

Some friends I used to game with had to ban Risk 2210 because it got too hostile. The downward slide in any Risk-type game can be ugly.

TI3 gets around that a little bit by having a point-based victory track; it's just possible for someone who's getting slaughtered to steal the game in a few turns by racking up a run of points for achieving objectives.

I'll play almost any kind of game except collectibles--I think gaming should be more like a hobby than like a crack addiction, and I kind of loathe the idea of a player essentially being able to buy wins by spending more money than the rest of the group. A game ought to be something one person buys and then shares, not something everyone has to invest in just to stay in.

Eric-We've only played Risk 2010 a handful of times. I agree with the collectable game vs. regular game. There's no skill or strategy involved in spending wads of cash to boost a deck or whatever. I did play Magic in high school, but that was about the extent of it.

What hast thou done? Why hasn't thou obeyed My divine will and given this gift to Jim, who is in appropriate awe of My divine nature?

A curse upon thee, and upon thee's thee's, and thee's knees if thou hast not done mine will. For I am the tangled skein within the gut of Creation. I attach and detach. My segments are many, my mouthparts but one. From My scolex to my tail are many segments, and I have many segments to fill. With eggs. Because that is My will, and My will be done. Thy hast disappointed me, Nathan Gendzier. Thou mightst wantst to cook thy hamburgers especially well-done, for thou hast displeased Me with thy failure to let Jim win.

No time to sit down and roleplay anymore? Friends scattered everywhichway? Come on down to RPoL for some play-by-post action. :D

When I try to explain roleplaying to others, I start by calling it "group storytelling." Then go into explaining how the GM comes up with the setting and plot premises while everyone else has characters. It seems easily grokkable that way.

The last time I played Risk, it was a Starcraft UMS. After an hour I had over half the board and it was basically a stalemate, and I was really tired of playing. :p Thusly did I decide to stay away from all Zone Control style games - I do really well up to a certain point but am completely unable to finish anyone off.

Oh and also. For a really long time I was certain I had an unknown lurker in the Seattle area (it definitely wasn't Jeri). Then I found out it was a friend in Texas. Also, on some of the stat breakdowns, my friend in Croatia gets lumped into a category called "UK." I don't know whether Sitemeter is better than Statcounter at keeping track of locations, but some of the unknowns probably aren't as unknown as you think. ;)

Just went and looked at my own Statcounter and found that since I started keeping track, back in Sept. 07, I've had 10,073 page loads and 6,571 unique visitors (some of those are me when the idiotic McAfee deletes my blocking cookie).

this post holds the current record for comments with 130. Interestingly enough, it too was kicked off by a certain Action Hero who doesn't know how to type an entire sentence before publishing his comment.

Prior to that, the record was held by this which clocked in with 91 comments.

Mine's free too. It gives me page loads, unique visits, and returning vistors.I can break down the info by day, week, month, quarter, or year. And it shows me visitor data and locations on a map (that info it only stores 500 "log entries" and if I wanted more, it would cost me).All in all, I'm pretty pleased with it.

For the same timeframe as Anne (because we installed them at the same time, right after Jim started talking about his), my statcounter says I've had 12,074 total page loads and 7,588 unique visitors. So on the whole, I'd say Nathan is doing pretty well hitwise since he only started his in January. :)

Also: statcounter allows you to write in IP addresses you want blocked. That's where I put my home and work, so I don't have to worry about deleting any cookies. It's the wrench thingy, second icon from the left, then the top link marked "edit settings."

Has it occurred to anyone else that if Jim wins, he'll actually have to set foot inside a movie theater? With its sticky coke-drenched floors and popcorn debris and people talking on their cellphones and screaming children? And what about the lines??

Kimby is taking a break from spending time with Charlotte....as the next installment is due tomorrow. I am working tonight, so trying to print out the stuff i am working on so i can handwrite at work on my breaks.

Don't be surprised if my chapter is late.....this week was not the week for me to try and get writing done.

It's UCFish, Yes It Is.

Oh Nooooooooeeeeeees!

About Me

I make my living as a Location Manager on movies and TV shows. Sometimes I write about that. Mostly I write about whatever I feel like at the moment.
I'd say the blog is eclectic, but that would be a lie. It's just a manifestation of my Attention Deficit Disorder.